The little village we live in is not always a favorite place for me. Luckily, there are some wonderful redeeming qualities that make it a difficult place to leave. A major quality is the proximity to the Wisconsin River and the eagles that spend the winter fishing in the waters here. More and more of the eagles are nesting in the area as well but that is another story for another time. This story is about the eagles of winter and how they can rescue a week of battling colds over busy holiday travel times.
I was hoping to make up some hunting time by taking advantage of my new job with MATC and the fact that the college is closed from December 24 until January 2. With a few days off beyond the travel times I thought I could get a few more hunts in with Rosie to continue her record pheasant year and get a deer hunt in to salvage my personal deer hunting streak of every year since I turned twelve (more on both later). Jackson changed my plans starting out with a stuffy head the weekend before Christmas and moving to a bad chest cold throughout the rest of week. I guess with several nights of having to try to comfort him out of coughing fits it would make sense that both Jenny and I would also get sick! Jenny definitely got the worse of it but my cold kept me from joining a buddy for a deer hunt both Friday and Saturday. Not to mention not thinking about trying to take Rosie hunting when I could barely make a walk around the neighborhood! She is not a happy dog at the moment; I hope to make one more trip before the season ends on the 31st if the weather is decent (it was about 12 below zero this morning). Another story for another time…
This story is about time outdoors with Jackson. By Sunday morning Jackson was nearly back to himself, he was still dealing with some coughing fits but was clearly at the end of his cold. Of course Jenny and I were dealing with colds of our own at this point but I was on the recovery path as well so decided I had to find a way to get Jackson out of the house for a while to give Jenny a break. We tried playing in the yard with some shoveling and a quick sled ride around the yard. We were having fun until Jackson decided he had been out long enough to earn a hot cocoa so back in the house he went. I knew I had to try something else to get him out of the house. I didn’t have many options as it was getting close to lunch and then nap time. I wasn’t sure if it would work but I threw out idea to go to the dam and watch eagles and he went for it!
Jackson watching eagles
Jackson’s “silly face”
Jackson’s “grumpy face”
So Jackson, Rosie and I loaded into my truck and made the ~5 minute drive to the Prairie du Sac Dam to see if any eagles were in the area. We had perfect timing as there were about 15 birds perched in the trees on our side of the river with several more fishing out over the river! We were treated to several eagles flying within maybe 30 yards of the truck and some easy viewing opportunities for Jackson to “spy the eagles” with our binoculars. We had a blast for the next hour or so watching eagles, geese and many ducks while sitting in the truck. Not bad for a quick 5 minute drive from home!
randyoutdoors 
Posted by Jen K. on January 1, 2014 at 6:09 pm
I took my dad there last weekend also! Great spot. Happy New Year!
Posted by Steve Westre on April 9, 2015 at 9:12 pm
I’d like to read these blogs more often. I’ve heard that if you don’t feel like exercising you should still go the gym or wherever you exercise and just sit there–it’s better to do that than skip it cause the worst thing is to make a habit of not doing it. Same thing with meditation. If you don’t feel like meditating just sit where you usually do. With writing a blog just make a note of the most significant observation of the day and write a few lines about it. If you walk along the river there will always be some little thing that is interesting that you can write about. Yesterday I saw a tree swallow sitting in a tree with a nice nesting cavity. I saw a bluebird looking at it a few days ago. There are only so many perfect cavities. I also saw a lot of dead sheephead along the bank. What caused that? I also saw a herring gull eating a dead sheephead. My dog likes them best after they’ve been there so long they’re nicely dried. Always lots of stuff going on along the river.
Posted by randy on April 10, 2015 at 11:08 am
Thank you Steve, you are correct and I will take your advice…stay tuned.